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Having recently re-subscribed to the “Less is best” school of life grad program, here is my burn out—I mean — burnt offering for the coming holidays. These are the things which can still make me laugh out loud, long and so hard, I risk a ruptured gut. Pretty sure you’ll agree.

My life is finally one with the universe. Well, the universe as I perceive it anyhow. Spike Lee, peanut head film auteur & Knicks fan, spoke out recently—no breaking news there, he does it a lot. That he called the works of Tyler Perry buffoonery, suggesting it was setting the cause of African-Americans back faster than Oprah can load a dish at an all you can eat buffet, is the shocker. Not sure I can live in a world where Spike Lee and I agree, so I’ll add the following—Tyler Perry is setting the entire human race back. Now that’s a race problem!

Perry’s partner in a recent movie release, Winfrey, has announced she’ll be ending her TV show in 2011. This one made me laugh so hard I might have to sue her for the sutures my sides required. 2011?!… Hold on, maybe she knows something! [see below] Regardless, she’ll no doubt pull a Leno and turn up on a night time version. Let’s see, I bet it will be called O! What a Night. I like O! What a Load.

The 2009 Major League baseball season ended the way it always should, so no gloat-fest here. Two things do need addressing. One is the phrase “bought players.” Teams sign players to contracts—- often for huge money. Yes, they all have the option to do so. While the jaded fan may choose to esteem that process as “buying,” they are morons. Abe Lincoln freed the slaves with that old Emancipation Proclamation. Nobody ain’t buyin’ nobody no mo’. To claim the Yankees bought C.C. Sabathia is racist. BTW did I mention THE YANKEES WIN! THE_UHHHHHHHHH YANKEES WIN!!

As for Bud Selig, 80 year old used car salesman/baseball commissioner (@ $20 million per annum). He just noticed the time lag between playoff games is a bit extreme. Wow! 20 mil doesn’t buy the quality brains does it. Of course, LA of A Angels manager of the year Mike Scioscia complained about it. Mainly due to the Angels losing. If Yankees mgr. Joe Girardi had bitched, a fresh round of anti-NYY sentiment would have filled the airwaves in red hot parallel pinstripes to the yowls of “Yankees bought another World Series” bullshit. Those fellas need some new slogans. I have one for them — STFU.

Read some history you a-holes. Sports has always been this way. You can’t sit around smugly saying life ain’t fair – deal with it to people having a rough time of it now- and then cry when your team gets whupped. Mainly because they are cheapskates. Why doesn’t Selig donate 18 or 19 million of his take, to the team with the worst record each year, so they can S I G N a big time free agent. AS if that alone assures anyone of positive results. MLB needs a major league overhaul, with a tier & rewards system for team performance. They won’t do it, because suits like Pud & his cronies like it the way it is-stoopit. Don’t blame the Yankees, blame the owners of all the other teams. But you won’t.

Nobody cries but NYY fans when tyro low payroll teams like the Florida Marlins & Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Yankees on a fluke & their owners bank the cake for trophy wives and ocean front property in Palm Springs. Oh! then it’s David v. Goliath and if it’s like a story in the Bible, it’s good enough for Joe Redass. When did douche baggery start ruling the world?

Which dovetails, in an un-dove like way to a socio-religious aspect of the current flick 2012. Seems they are ecumenical in their destruction of world religious symbols. Oh wait, they forgot to blow up any Islamic sites. Wouldn’t want to offend those clowns. Now I think of it, they do a pretty good job of blowing up the world themselves, literally and figuratively. If somebody told them the truth about the virgins (actually it’s a box of raisins – you could look it up), do you think they’d do that reprehensible shameful Bombing for Allahs trick? Still, all that doesn’t excuse the P.C. pandering of the film makers. Weak. Very.

Continuing on in the weak dept., there is a sports talk host on WFAN, New York City. The guy is a man of the people type, he speaks English natively, but he mangles it grammatically. He can barely speak a sentence without stammering and repeating words. Was this a pity hire? Hey! that’s fine on some small radio station in the sticks, not on the seminal sports powerhouse, in the world’s largest and most influential media market. The worst part is, a typical sports talk show attracts limited intellect callers. This guy’s audience takes it to a new low, the mouth breather boxing fans are the most virulent. He’s on now like 8 nights a week. Can anyone say—video of suits with donkeys?

It’s obvious, I’m thankful for all the laughter this has all brought me. I’m looking forward to all the swell things 2010 will bring. After all, we’re at the 2 year warning—the Mayan Calendar ends in 2012. Anybody else notice it’s “the Calendar?” My @#%&*! calendar ends every year. My only hope is every year would end with-

The state of the economy has taken its toll of many. I would never minimize how it has adversely affected people and the ramifications of it will extend into their lives for years to come. That said, it has finally & cruelly gone too far. This is just awful, sad news. I see the Apocalypse coming out of left field and it ain’t Manny Ramirez—OK, maybe it looks a lot like him.

PETE Abraham, Yankee beat writer and incredibly successful blogger for the NY area Lower Hudson Journal News is leaving the pinstripes to move closer to his family. He’s going to work for Boston Globe.com. It’s an upgrade for him and I wish him the best. But he’s going to be covering the Re… no! I can’t bring myself to say it. Or type it. Or whatever it is I’m doing. Other than feeling ill that is.

You know, when they tried to trade the legendary Jackie Robinson from the Brooklyn Dodgers to their hated cross town rivals the NY (Manhattan) Giants, he retired. It was a laudable and principled albeit extreme statement Mr. Robinson made. Of course, a hot dog at the ballpark & a Coke didn’t cost you $25 fifty years ago. And gas to fill the tank to take a drive to see the folks was 22¢ a gallon. Really.

Sure, Jackie wasn’t making 15 million a season either, he was lucky if he topped out at 40K ( the O’Malley’s were likely trying to salary dump, seeing as Robinson was in his mid 30’s). Pete isn’t getting millions to switch, but the Globe is getting a guy who did make a baseball blog in three years the most popular one on the net. Having the Yankees as the team didn’t hurt. That won’t happen in Boston—99% of Sawks fans can’t read. Oddly the other one per cent are writers of all levels and/or brilliant talents. Go figure.

I’d heard the newsstand copy of the Globe will become extinct in 2010, along with the NY Daily News, Miami Herald & 5 other major metro dailies. Online being the current format & one Pete has been extremely successful with, they are getting a proven winner. That said, here are the Top 5 Stories I hope he gets to file next season-

5. Ted Williams secretly longed to be a NYY & wore Yankee logo boxers

4. MIT will publish a Nobel Prize winning paper that Varitek is indeed a Cro Magnon

3. Larry Lucchino & Theo Epstein are married to each other

2. Every Red Sox player except Ted Williams & Dom DiMaggio has been juicing since 1919. They just didn’t get the good stuff until 2004

1. The entrance to Hell is that door in the Green Monster Manny used. . ..

Chastity Bono is entering manhood. The daughter of the late great Salvatore Sonny Bono and the wax figure Cher, is 40 and an out lesbian. Upon reading this news, all I can think about is, it would’ve really hurt Sonny’s chances to become President.

It’s a bit odd, but the last few U.S. Presidents have only had female offspring. The one guy who had sons, George Walker Bush, had a son who became President ( in case you’d forgotten—yeah sure ). So, maybe it’s a good thing. But why all the X chromosomes* dudes? don’t ask. Don’t tell. Gotcha.

Hey! good for Chas Bono. Whatever happens, she’s got to have more balls than the team from the Bronx who went to Boston and got theirs handed to them on home plate. Again. Baseball — people are fond of saying — is a marathon. It’s a long season & there are a hundred games left to play. Luckily for the Yankees, only eleven are v. the Rat Sox.

Seriously kids—whatever drugs you’re not using—start. I haven’t felt this embarrassed since I tried returning a jacket to a store and the saleswoman pointed out pit stains. At the time I told her, ” I’m a Yankee fan ” it was October 2004. She said poor man, patted me on the shoulder, gave me a refund and the number of a homeopathic healer. Wonder if MLB.com will take back all these @#%&*! Yankee caps!

Could all those Beanotown ‘tards be right? do the Yankees really—suck? Frankly, I don’t give a damn. That’s no excuse. Vacuum cleaners suck, but still get the job done. Same goes for hookers. And high schoolers with self esteem issues. The real problem is every other team gets so amped up when they play the Yankees, the opposition often performs way above their skill set. Yankees routinely make rookie pitchers look like Cy Young candidates, if not Cy himself. Why isn’t a fathead such as Josh Beckett 30 and 0? why—because he doesn’t get 30 starts versus the Yankees. That’s why. I hate that arrogant load.

Sigh. It is a long season. But if you have to say it—you are all ready in trouble. The season ain’t long enough for those Mass-holes to forget how they beat everything in midnight blue pinstripes — home and away to the tune of eight straight unanswered ass whuppings. Will the newly masculated Chas, sorry—make that — Chaz Bono be able to hit a big league curve ball? she or he can’t do worse than those choke ponies. Now where is my Phillies cap. . ..

* that’s XX which = a female as opposed to XXX which would be Vin Diesel or Peter North, whoever comes first. . ..

For a guy who hasn’t lived in or even near NYC for two decades now (yikes!)—I am still a New York elitist. As much as my minimalist lifestyle allows, I pay attention to my old hometown via whatever media sources I can.

That’s why it pains me to say the New York Yankees & some NY sports hosts are idiots. Nothing says it more than the curious case of one young pitcher, Joba (pronounced Jah-bah, yes, like Jabba the Hutt) Chamberlain. Two seasons ago, Joba joined the Yankees at the major league level. He proceeded to become a cult hero as an emergency reliever, smoking out of the bullpen with a success rate of almost perfect, firing bb sized fastballs past batters & striking them out frequently, bats on their shoulder. However…

Chamberlain had been groomed as a starting pitcher in the Yankee farm system, one with a repertoire of four pitches, a valuable & desirable commodity. A lights out closer is a team’s dream. But strong starting pitching and a young pitcher at that, is rare, not to mention necessary. So, when the man, the myth, the legend Mo Sandman Rivera returned to his rightful place as the Yankees closer, Joba was tasked to begin his evolution into the Yankee starting rotation.

OK enough back story. Fluke injuries, gnats, heat for his fervor on the mound & a DUI/strip club related bust, oh yeah and some really bad first innings have reopened the debate. Joba starter or Joba reliever? But the Yankees have proven in the past (repeatedly), they have no clue how to bring along pitchers. In fact since Mel Stottlemyre was banished, a case could be made the franchise can’t even manage veteran hurlers. Injuries happen so often, Joba to the bully now might be a premature move waiting to happen if Chien-Ming Wang (in no pitcher’s land between rehab & redemption) can’t rebound & Phil Hughes remains a roller coaster of results.

One WFAN radio host— let’s call him Bullwinkle— challenges callers who want Joba in the pen by saying “are 21 starts for Joba enough” to determine his ability as a starting pitcher. Well, no one truly knows that answer. But the greatest closer in history, the aforementioned Mr. Rivera, only had ten — count ’em genius —10. So, why is this radio moron so adamant. Joba has had twice as many and he has proven all ready he can be amazing out of the bullpen. Rivera did not have such proven credentials when he was, at the time, demoted!

So, I love New York. But I lament the hubris of guys who can’t take in actual data and realize they might be barking up the wrong alley. Naturally, at this point no one even knows if Joba can return to his glory status as a reliever. Maybe he misses getting a beer buzz & seeing a few boobs. Because boobs they may be, those deciding his fate are not the same as cornfed mamas for a young man with a high hard one.*

* for non-baseball fans—a high hard one is a good major league fastball–or not…

Having just realized I rarely say anything about the sports media people I like, I hope to remedy that a bit here. One reason I neg out a lot is, the guys who provoke me seem do it when I’m nearest to a keyboard. The other is I’m bitter. Here are thumbnail mentions of a few who just happen to be from the NYC metro area. How’d that happen!

Michael Kay, who began his pro career as a sportswriter, currently straddles two media giants. One owns the New York Yankees, the other takes cheap shots. Long before the NYY launched the YES Network (Yankees Entertainment & Sports), Kay made the move from print to the broadcast booth, paired with legendary egoist John Sterling. I thought Kay was great—at a time when the beloved pair of Phil Rizzuto & Bill White (my former neighbor) were ending their run, Kay was a breath of fresh & knowledgeable air. Yankee brass agreed. Now he anchors the YES play by play team & does a daily afternoon drive radio show for ESPN’s New York affiliate. AND I like him a lot. Joe Torre, on the other hand, may not. That’s another story.

Howard Megdal is a regular & integral contributor to a podcast—The New York Baseball Digest (hosted by Mike Silva). He’s also an author The Baseball Talmud— a non-fiction work which chronicles the history of professional Jewish baseball players. However, his main gig is covering NYC baseball for a newspaper The New York Observer. Though an ardent Mets fan, his sharp wit & ability to extemporaneously turn a phrase on mic, make him a rare exception in the sports media—intelligent beyond the sports arena. I used to be pretty good at this: I’d place his IQ at 130, if not slightly higher. He’s one of the few I can actually listen to criticize the Yankees, typically because he’s right. His Achilles’ heel is WFAN megastar Mike Francesa—don’t get him started. . ..

The next man I have come to praise (and not bury) is another sportswriter & blogger Pete Abraham. His LoHud.com Yankees blog has so many hits each day, I can rarely leave a comment due to my slow dial up—because there are frequently too many other comments, often well over 300-400, sometimes many more! Pete is the Yankees beat writer for The Journal News & also makes many radio appearances, providing his insight to Yankee baseball. Even when he’s on a break, he often files a post, because he loves baseball. Sadly, the immense popularity of his blog doesn’t exclude him from the current economic downward trend in newspapers, and he’s actually on an unpaid furlough for a week! Sigh. BTW Pete was at the game anyway last night as a fan. Here’s hoping it all turns around for everybody. Except for Boston — I ain’t smoking any of Mary Lou’s bud.

Not in any way would I minimize the work, talent & efforts of the next two. I place them in tandem because Sweeny Murti & Ed Coleman cover the Yankees & Mets respectively, for WFAN AM New York, the King of sports talk radio. They are both routinely on air around the clock, doing phone reporting i.e. Sweeny was on today at 4:25 AM. Are the Yanks on the West Coast? did a game run extraordinarily late or something extremely awful happen? Nope—though Joba Chamberlain did take a batted ball off a kneecap (he’s OK—hmmmm). Sweeny is also very bright (Penn State grad). Mercifully(?) the Mets were on a travel day to Feng Shui Park for the weekend ugh, unless you like hubris with your chowdah. So, Eddie had a respite from the Mets woes.

See, I can say nice stuff. Especially when it’s true. Yankees v. Phillies this weekend, should be balls flying out of new Yankee Stadium. While I am naturally rooting for the Yanks to win more than they lose, I have a soft spot for the Phils from my 20 years of living & working in Bucks County PA.

Pay attention. You are about to witness how the Boston baseball franchise and their fanbase treat one of their heroes. Make that former hero. David Ortiz, hired gun—that’s right, he is not a product of the Boston system, has lost his one skill, hitting a baseball. No more worshipping him with the drooling femmo nickname, one typically used by Latinas for their lovers. No mas hombre, what have you done for me lately? That’s the modus operandi for Beano-town. Just ask Fred Lynn, Wade Boggs, Roger Clemens and crazy old Bill Lee. Oh and what’s his name? that guy in LA!

Yeah, they love you big time, as long as you can beat the Yankees. Not so much when you go 0 for April. And May. You can fool some Red Sox fans some of the time, but they have a sixth sense for weakness, as do most rats. Mr. Ortiz, who may or may not be chemically altered, or be slightly older than his “baseball” age—listed as 33 going on hmmmmm 38, is currently experiencing a drop off in hit production. The fans have noticed and they are ready for a new hero. Oh, golly gee, they’d never go outside the organization! Hey! Michael Vick is available. Don’t think too hard about it. Kind of a made for each other thing.

It’s a great opportunity to watch these hypocrites go into action. Somehow they’ll manage to throw up a smoke screen of misdirection. Manufacture some more anti-Yankee gear. That seems to be their go to move. The Yankees admittedly had a chance to sign Ortiz the last time a team figured he was done (Minnesota Twins); they lived to regret it. If Ortiz could play 162 games exclusively v. the NYY, he and Neanderthal poster-boy Jason Varidreck would be lock Hall of Famers. Alas, they cannot.

As Boston sits the kids down to tell them it’s time to divorce Big Papi, the rest of us can take notes on how to dump a guy when he’s down. It’s what they do there along Yuckey Way, while pretending like some 8 year old kid— it wasn’t me throwed that spitball Miz Crabtree—it was that damnyankee A Rot…

Addendumb:Mr. Ortiz homered last night, his first after 149 at bats. Apparently he was both excited & confused. He had been informed New York was coming to town. Sorry, David, it’s the New York Mets. BTW I adore Ortiz & Varidreck—I hope they have their best seasons ever. Seriously. I mean it. No, really.

It seems Manny being Manny was aided and abetted by performance enhancing substances†[please see below]. All those clutch, drop the Yankees hits while with the Boston team, were bullshit. Now, while that city and its players enjoy the rewards their envy and hypocrisy continue to provide them, they need to admit they are phonies. If they can hate on and gloss the NYY as the evil empire, riddled with cheaters, then they themselves are surely the Weasel World of sports. Yankees suck? you m*****r f****rs suck and blow.

I have been watching, and for a short youthful period, playing baseball since 1956. I steeped myself in the game via what media was available then— TV, radio, books, magazines and baseball cards. It never seemed enough—sure baseball was talked year round—with friends. Nothing like the current media, carpet bombing 24 hours a day, seven days a week; pervasive and invasive coverage. Really, it’s too much. It encourages excesses and it gets them. From everyone involved.

Too much and yet the magpies who pass for talk show hosts on all sports radio outlets, discrete team owned tv, and networks like ESPN & Fox, turned a sycophantic blind eye to some tried and true practices. Amphetamines before games and shopping trips after—lining up groupies for stars. AND the last 20 plus seasons of slowly unfolding revelations of anabolic steroids and human growth hormones (HGH)usage by the big names of the big leagues.

It has resulted in the breeding of hack writers such as Selena Roberts (Sports Illustrated) who indicted the Duke Lacrosse team for party fouls at the rapist level before they were found NOT guilty*, to her present exposé book of Alex Rodriguez. These jock sniffing carrion eaters turn on you faster than a whirling dervish and they care not a whit if they are subsequently off the mark. The bullshit “court of public opinion” is the demographic they court. The lowest common denominator, once the exclusive stained and chawn turf of the National Enquirer, a newspaper no self respecting journalist would’ve been employed by when I was in J school, is catered to via sensationalism passing for reporting and writing.

It has also grown the barely literate radio talk host, most of whom have never read a book. If they have, it was about sports and no doubt, at the level of a fifth grader. Video games began cutting into the sports dollar heavily during the eighties and in some cases supplanted it for youth recreational time and bucks. The spawn of gamers are the announcers of today’s media. Dumb as rocks without the charm and personality. The majority of athletes, even less so. Easy to see how in this environment a clownish thug such as Manny Ramirez can thrive and pull the double-knit polyfiber over the eyes (and the limited intellect within their heads) of the feral media. One moment they are sucking up, the next, sucking the life out of their prey—the superstar, over paid and undereducated.

Major league baseball itself is led by a septuagenarian former team owner and used car salesman. He needs to step down; he never should have been there to need to do so. Baseball needs restructuring, it is at once archaic and contemporary, the new parts grafted on top of its decay, an aging Hollywood actor made of plastic. A Joan Rivers face, attempting to deceive the world into thinking she’s Megan Fox. A world moving so fast, it almost works—one because even if they had attention spans, most humans own the observational skills of two year olds.

No Boston fan will ever own up**—Manny ain’t theah prawblem anymore. I’m sure they’ll say he never got caught copping ‘roids down by the Charles River. He is however, the true face of the MLB, smug and bloated, and they only suspend him for 50 games? ha ha ha. Manny loves a vacation, he comes back well rested (pumped full of some new undetectable designer dope) for the stretch run and leads a slumping LA to the playoffs again. This is almost a strategic gift! Blow up baseball and bring the Dodgers back to Brooklyn—if you rebuild it they will come. But you won’t, you’re too fucking stupid. And so are your ugly, dumbass friends.

† Ramirez tested positive for a female(!) fertility drug HCG, or human chorionic gonadotropin. HCG is popular with some steroid users because it can mitigate the side effects of ending a cycle of the drugs. Going off steroids can stop testosterone production, decreasing sperm count & shrinking testicles. Manny apparently wants to maintain those big balls as well as cheat…

* Niether Roberts nor SI printed a retraction—creeps.

** Denis Leary, Doris Kearns Goodwin & Jonathan Schwartz might, but they are exceptions because they are exceptional.

** Simon Pegg appears as Scotty in the new Star Trek movie—Alvin & the Chipmunks reference 110% gratuitous, though a nuts connotation is implicit